Think Above Par | Your Mental Caddy for Golf Mindset & Performance
Serious golfer? You know you’ve got the talent—but your brain keeps getting in the way. Think Above Par helps you master the mental game of golf, stop overthinking, and quit worrying about what others think on the course so you can play calm, confident, and consistent golf every round.
If you’re a serious golfer who knows you’re leaving shots out on the course, Think Above Par is your go-to podcast for mastering the mental game of golf. Hosted by Kathy Hart —a former Tour player, Top 50 Teacher, and Certified Mental Coach—each episode helps you strengthen your golf mindset, manage pressure, and play calm, confident, and consistent golf.
You’ll discover why you underperform under pressure, how to stop overthinking your swing, and what to do when you’re worried about what others think on the golf course. Whether you struggle with performance anxiety, perfectionism, or negative self-talk, Kathy shares proven mental-game tools to help you unlock your talent, enjoy the game again, and lower your golf scores.
Learn how to think above par—so you can play below par. Subscribe now to your weekly dose of golf mindset coaching and start transforming your golf brain today.
Think Above Par | Your Mental Caddy for Golf Mindset & Performance
Trying Hard vs Trying Too Hard
•Kathy Hart Wood•Episode 12
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
0:00
|
13:44
There is a difference between "trying hard" and "trying TOO hard".
In this episode, I explain the difference and how it affects your score and results. I also share some ways to identify when you are trying too hard.
Often people think that if you don't try HARD than you don't care or that you have given up. I talk about how there is something in the middle and share how to get better results by "trying...just not TOO hard."
Welcome to Above Par. I'm your host, Kathy Hartwood. I show you how to take more of your talent to the golf course without practicing harder, taking more lessons, or buying new equipment. I show you how to end the frustration of underperforming so you can start playing to your potential. This is where you are going to learn how to think above par so you can play below par. Let's get to it. Hello my friend, and welcome back to Above Par. This is Kathy and this is Master's Week. Pretty much my favorite week of the year. I have like three big days that I make sure that I take care of me and that's my birthday, Mother's Day. I had three babies in three years, so I'm taking care of me on Mother's Day, and Master Sunday. So pretty you pretty much know where I am on Master's Sunday. I do not work, I try not to plan anything. I just love that day. I love Master's Week and I'm so glad it's back in April because it's kind of weird. We just had it and now we're having it again. But I have fond memories of going to Augusta. I've been a few times. I've gone and watched my brother, he's played three times. I dated a guy in college who qualified as an amateur and I watched him play. That was fun. I went another time in college. I was thinking, I don't even know how I got tickets. Like it's crazy the things that I did in college that I don't know how we got tickets. But I went with some girls from the team. I'm sure we had someone from school maybe give them to us. But I have just lots of fond memories of going there. And if you haven't had the chance to go, it is definitely should be on your bucket list if you're a golfer. It is a lot of fun and quite the experience. And I'm sure that it will be an amazing uh venue with less people there this year, which is kind of, I don't know, I think I would want to go during with those less people. I would like that ticket for sure. So I gotta tell you a story. So one time I was uh went and watched my brother and we on the practice run, and when he got finished, he had asked me when we were all done if I would like to caddy for him in the par three. And I was like, yes, I want to caddy for you in the par three. Wait, do I want a caddy for I don't know, do I? I'm like, yeah, I'm doing it. Because I was a little intimidated by the whole thing, I must say, because I had to go over and get my overalls, and he took off and headed to the par three. He basically gave me a hurry up. He had some people that he was going to be playing with, and so I was quickly changing wherever they gave me the overalls, and I started to hustle over towards the par three. Now, walking there is it's wide open. Okay, this is my memory at least, so maybe I maybe it's exaggerated, but I felt like it was a soccer field wide. It was a huge, wide ferry, beautiful grass just rolling down towards the first T, lined with people. And I'm in the middle, there's no one else there. So I'm walking in the middle of this with all these people watching me, and I'm jogging. It's a fast walk jog, and I hear this no running. I was like, okay, like because it's pretty quiet. There's nobody's talking. I mean, I can hear this person yell this no running. I was like, okay, I kind of laughed and kept running. I heard it again, no running. And I looked around and everybody had kind of stopped and was staring at me. And out walks this guy in his master's uniform, whatever he was wearing, a green jacket, I don't know. And he said, There is no running at the master's. I was like, whoa. So I said, Do you not understand? I need to get to the first T of the par three. That's where I'm headed. I did not argue with the man, I just stopped. I was slightly humiliated at that moment, and I walked as fast as I could speed walk on my way there without running. But yes, I got reprimanded running in a little catty overalls to the par three first tee. But it is a very fun event and I look forward to watching it. I hope you're watching it too. I hope it's a I hope the weather's great and the pairings are awesome because it makes for an exciting Master's Sunday. It's always exciting, really, no matter what happens. But this week I wanted to talk to you about trying hard and trying too hard because going into Master's Week, I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of those players who are gonna be trying too hard because the event is just the biggest event of the year. So I want to differentiate the difference between trying hard and trying too hard. Trying too hard or trying to force a result is comes from pressure and stress and neediness and graspiness. It has an energy of urgency that you're in a hurry. You're in a hurry to get a result, you're a little forceful in it, right? You're trying too hard, you're trying to force the result. And if you remember what I talk about with the formula uh steer, S-T-E-A-R, the result is at the bottom. The result happens as a result of what's above it in the formula. We can't force it to happen. No matter how much we want it to happen, we have to pay attention to what is driving our actions to getting to it. If we have if our emotions are negative or coming from a negative place, we are going to have a hard time getting our results. I'm not saying you can't get them. I'm not saying you're not going to achieve them. It's just heavy and forceful. And it doesn't feel good along the way. It's not fun, right? We're not enjoying the process. What happens is we're in a hurry to go from where we are to where we want to be, because where we where we perceive that where we're going to get will feel so much better than where we are right now. We perceive that once we get that result, that we're going to be so much happier or content or proud or recognized or feel like we have success. Right. If you start to feel that, if you're not enjoying the process along the way, if you notice that you're really urgent to get the result, like you want it so badly, to get whatever you're trying to achieve, whether it's to win a tournament or to qualify, right? If you just have that where it's coming from such a place of urgency, I'm just going to suggest that you're doing it wrong. I'm not saying that you can't get there. I just think there's an easier way, there's a more effortless way. In contrast, what happens is then when people think that if they don't try that hard, then the opposite is quitting or not caring or not trying or giving up. And I'm I'm telling you, that's not true. There is something in between. You can still try hard, you can still care, but the difference is that your energy is coming from motivation and dedication and concentration and focus. Right? That energy, that positive emotion is going to drive actions that are more effortless and easy and enjoyable. And the chances of you getting that thing that you want become much greater. You're not in a hurry to get to another place because you like exactly where you are. You're enjoying the process. You're working towards this thing that you want to achieve and you're also being fulfilled at the same time. Right? It's way more fun. And the chances of your success go way up. I did this when I was trying to qualify for a national tournament. I wanted to qualify so badly. The pressure I put on myself was unbelievable. I practiced, I overpractice, I practiced all the time. I was worried about my swing. I thought about, I thought about qualifying so much that it just was, it consumed me all the time. It was the only thing that I wanted. Right. And I was just trying too hard. I did not qualify. I when I went out there, I there I put so much pressure on myself that the minute I made a mistake, I kind of became a little unraveled. I was like, oh no, oh no, no, no, we can't do this because we need to get there. We need to have that qualifying. I need to have that achievement. And I just made it so much harder on myself. And of course, I was so much more disappointed when I didn't get it than had I enjoyed the process along the way. I'd be willing to fail a little bit along the way. I'd be willing to have the ups and downs. I was totally not tolerant of any ups and downs when I'm trying too hard. When you're trying too hard, you are really do become intolerant of failing, right? Failing doesn't mean quitting. Failing just means we just have some ups and some downs and we just keep going. We keep picking ourselves up. We learn from it and keep going. But when you're trying too hard, whenever you have a little bit of a fail or when you feel like you might have a little bit of a setback, right? We kind of become a little bit panicky in that process, right? We become very intolerant of that. So let me share with you a few ways that it might show up for you, like red flags that you might be trying too hard. One of them is if you find yourself saying things like, I need to make that putt, I have to hit it close, I have to get out of this bunker, right? I need to hit this in the fair way. If you feel, if you hear those words coming out of your mouth or in your head, right, you're probably trying too hard, right? You're putting too much pressure on that shot at hand. And the chances of you making a pretty good swing over that go way down. The next one is that you do a thing that I call chasing squirrels, which is you hit a bad shot to the right and then you try and fix that swing. And then you hit a shot to the left and you try and fix that swing. Then you might hit one a little bit thin and you're like, oh, I'm gonna try and do this. I'm gonna turn my hips more on this one. I'm gonna, oh, I think that was my left toe, right? I think I need to put more pressure on my left toe while I squeeze my right butt cheek. I mean, I've heard it all, right? These are like crazy things that you try and change after every single shot. This is the thing. You do not want to chase or change anything unless you have a pattern, first of all. First all, and if you're chasing every swing, right, that's coming from a sense of panic, a little bit of an urgency, like you're worried and uncertain that you know what you're doing. You feel out of control, right? You're just trying too hard to find something to hang on to for that little sense of certainty in your swing, right? You're not being able to even think clearly when you're doing that. You're you're doing things that are nonsensical, like trying to squeeze your right butt cheek, right? So, all right. So, number three is you try to shoot a number, right? So if you go out there and you're like, you know what? I need to break 80 today. I'm gonna go out here with the intention of breaking 80, or I'm going out there with the intention of not shooting over a certain number. That's trying too hard because you cannot control your results, my friend. I've said this in other podcasts. You can't control your bounces and your lies and your and the the green and the how the putt rolls. You can't control the weather or the people you play with. All you can control is how you show up over that golf ball, giving yourself the best ability and chance of making a good golf swing and you add them up at the end. You just can't control your results. And when you're putting that pressure on yourself to shoot a certain number, because if you do, you will feel a certain way like you're trying too hard. Number four is that you over lesson. And I get I've gotten this a lot where people they they go out and play and then they feel like they need to go and have that emergency lesson that there's something is broken, that they're not, they're doing something wrong, which is I'm not saying is a horrible thing to do, but then the next day they do the same thing, and the next day they do the same thing, right? So you need that sense of certainty and confidence building from an outside source, being an instructor, to give you that sense that you're doing everything okay, right? If you have that sense of worry and urgency to what you have going on in your swing, you're trying too hard. And then over practicing, I talked about over-practicing because I love to practice and I can overpractice in a heartbeat when I have an event coming up. And basically, what you're doing when you're over-practicing is you're looking for the answer at the bottom of a basket of balls, a basket of range balls, and it's not there. All you want to do is go out there and practice with a purpose, with intention. You want to have a plan, trust the plan, and then just stick to the plan. Right. When you go out there and you keep practicing and hitting balls, hoping that one swing will feel right, or that one shot will look right, and then you'll feel like you have it, and then you'll feel like you have that certainty and confidence going into that next round that you're playing in or the tournament that you're playing in, you're definitely trying too hard. So the question always comes up: okay, Kathy, so how do I try less hard? And the one thing that I would tell you is that you want to be really content with where you are right now. You want to set a goal and be okay where you are and and understand that the process is going to take time. You really need to do a gut check if you're if you're need, if you need to achieve something to feel better about yourself, that's a little bit of a red flag that you're doing it the hard way. You know, it's that's worth getting some coaching over, right? So that you can have that feeling of self-worth and enoughness right now where you are. You do not need to have your identity validated by you shooting a number or winning a tournament or qualifying for a big tournament, right? You are perfect and whole just as you are right now, and enjoy the process. You can be committed and dedicated and focused and enjoy the process no matter what the result happens. I hope that helped my friend. I hope you enjoy Master's Week as much as I'm going to enjoy it, and I will talk to you next week.
unknown
Bye.
SPEAKER_00
So if you're not getting emails from me, you want to make sure that you join my list at KathyHartwood.com forward slash join, where I'll send you some tips and some tricks, videos, podcast links, anything to help you improve your golf game. So find me there.
